Borderline Love

CH 17

We sat there with no words spoken. Just sitting there in the quiet. It was oddly peaceful. I think I needed it the most. Still being overly emotional about the whole situation, I started crying again. She sat there for a few minutes before she spoke up.

"What do you think is the biggest struggle right now?"

"Me not being me. I am not this way, I swear. Crying, cutting... I stopped years ago."

"Crying is a release. As far as cutting it's something you'll always have in the back of your mind as a coping skill that is until you replace it with a positive coping mechanism. What are your coping skills that are not harmful? I've noticed you sling your hair tie across your wrist. While that may work during an outing, when you're at home what can you do instead?"

"I guess...meditation, painting"

"What else, dig deeper."

"I like yoga and gardening? Maybe I can go pull weeds while I'm having an episode."

"There you go. A couple of things you should work on are your emotional dysregulation, your blame on yourself, and creating healthy coping skills like self care."

"I'll try."

"Tell me about your childhood."

"Well, I was abused for the majority of it."

"I know this must be hard to talk about, but can you tell me what types of abuse?"

"All of them. Physical, emotional, and even sexual."

Tears started to drip from my face. My eyes are burning from the salt. I wiped them with the sleeve of my jacket. The one thing this hospital let me have.

"I see, I am sorry you had to go through that. Can you tell me what ages?"

"Up until I was 16 when I moved out."

"That must have been hard for you. You must be really strong to still be here after all of that."

"I'd like to think I am strong."

"When you go to your outside therapist, I want you to focus on three things, emotional dysregulation, self-care, and trauma therapy. Do you like your current therapist?"

"Not really, don't get me wrong, he asks the right questions. It's just hard for me to open up. He has been fine I guess. Just never have been comfortable talking to men."

"Would you like us to refer you to a new therapist, a female?"

"That would be great."

"I'll put it in the notes." She jotted down in her notebook, "I saw in your report that you have amnesia black outs and often hear voices. These are not usual BPD symptoms. I think it would be wise to bring those up to your new therapist."

"Okay..." It was nice that she wasn't trying to diagnose me again like the last visit to the psych but I had to ask. "What...what do you think it might be, if not BPD." I held my breath waiting to hear the worst of it.

"Well it could be a few things, schizophrenia, D.I.D. I don't like diagnosing clients here. There just isn't enough time to get to know their history. We treat the symptoms not the disorder. So basically we treat mood disorders, depression etc."

"I know the first one, they said my ex had it. But what's D.I.D?"

"D.I.D. stands for dissociative identity disorder. It's an extreme case of dissociation but very rare. It takes a long time to treat, and is hard to diagnose."

"Oh okay," completely obvious.

"I think we have done a lot today and I just got a text saying it's almost lunch time. I bet you're hungry."